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The first time the Rockets offered Chris Finch a job, he didn't know what to think. Mostly, he wondered how they knew about him.

He did not expect that it would bring him from coaching jobs around Europe and as the coach of England's national team to his next job offer: to be part of Kevin McHale's staff with the Rockets.

Finch, however, accepted the position to coach the Rio Grande Valley Vipers as the Rockets took over operations of their NBA Development League affiliate. He took the Vipers to the D-League finals in each of his two seasons, added a championship to the titles won in England and Belgium, and will return to England on Friday as an NBA assistant coach.

As the coach of England's national team, he'll open training camp Saturday in preparation for September's European championships.

When the new Rockets staff — McHale, Kelvin Sampson, J.B. Bickerstaff, Brett Gunning and Finch — got together for several days of meetings this week, none had arrived via a more unusual road than Finch.

"I certainly was really intrigued, obviously so much so that I took the (D-League) job," Finch said. "I knew it was my best opportunity to make it to this level. I didn't want to be just stuck out on the reservation. I wanted an environment they could have some input on my development and I felt like a part of the organization overall.

"I did wonder how they knew so much about me."

Chance to be creative

Rockets general manager Daryl Morey thought enough of Finch to discuss promoting him with former Rockets coach Rick Adelman in the days following the season.

After Adelman agreed not to return as coach, Finch, 41, became a candidate for an assistant position when McHale was named coach.

"I enjoyed the time that I was able to work with coach Adelman's staff in summer league last year and be around them in training camps," Finch said. "They were very welcoming with a new endeavor with the whole D-League situation. It was a growing process right there."

Finch, a two-time Division III All-American at Franklin & Marshall, was 27 and playing in England for the Sheffield Sharks when a chance to go into coaching opened.

With the Vipers, he not only was able to study and implement Adelman's offense but also to try a variety of styles and ideas while working with much of the Rockets' young talent sent to RGV the past two seasons.

"One of our missions was certainly to mix some of the principles of the corner offense and what they were doing here and make it a part of what we were doing, but also to kind of experiment with some other things," Finch said. "We had to have some basics so when there was player movement back and forth, players were getting familiar with the system and the terminology. We were also doing some different things, experimenting around the edges of the game. It was a little bit of a lab.

"They encouraged us to be as creative as possible. I took that and tried to blend that with some things we did in Europe and different styles."

Putting ideas into play

Though Finch could help with continuity when McHale uses portions of the Rockets' offense of the past few seasons, a large part of the interviews with McHale centered on those D-League experiments.

"I like a lot of his ideas and a lot of the stuff he was talking about," McHale said. "He tried a lot of different things. He's bringing ideas and stuff he's tried that I think was interesting, some stuff out of the box and a little different."

But none of that is likely to be as different as Finch's road to the Rockets' bench.